Customize Activities and Transitions for a sequential reviewer workflow template

Inspire provides a template for a two-user content review process. If you want a workflow with a different number of reviewers, more actions, different transitions between activities, or assignments to different workgroups, you can customize the workflow template.

Required permissions

You must have permission to the Projects Module to work with projects and workflows. Other than that, you do not need special permissions to create, edit, or delete workflow templates.

However, keep in mind that administrators and other users can set permissions on components and folders.

  • You must have permission to edit the workflow template component.
  • You must have folder permissions where the template is stored.
  • For details on how to check and set permissions, refer to: Set permissions.

Tips and tricks

  • You can create an entirely new workflow template component that has no default Activities and Transitions.
    • Use the Topic workflow template explained in this topic as an example of what you can create.
    • To create a new template, follow the steps in: Create a workflow template component.
  • To learn more about the sequential review template, read: Understand the sequential review process.
  • If you want to change the name of the template or its type, follow the steps in: Update the details for a review workflow template.
  • If you want a workflow that contains more options when configuring activities and their transitions, you can update the default options in the workflow template. Follow the steps in: Update the building blocks for a review workflow template.
  • If an assignment is part of a workflow:
    • When the assignment is completed, the workflow can be configured to ask the user to select how the workflow should advance.
      • For example, if the user selects Accept, you can configure the workflow to advance to the next step that should occur if the content is ready to move forward to the next stage, such as approval, publishing, or translation.
      • For example, if the user selects Reject, you can configure the workflow to return to a step where the content can be revised, republished, or retranslated.
    • For more information, workflow coordinators can read: Customize an activity to have multiple transitions.

Before you begin

  • The changes to an Activity will be applied to all new workflows that are started using this template.
  • For workflows that use this template and are in progress:
    • If the Activity you are updating has not occurred yet, the changes will be applied when the workflows move to the updated Activity.
    • If the Activity you are updating has already been completed, the changes will not be applied.

To customize activities and transitions in a review workflow template:

  1. Click Components.
  2. In the Folders pane, select Workflows.

    You can save a workflow template to another folder. If you did this, open that folder instead of the Workflows folder.

  3. In the Components pane, double-click Sequential Reviewer Workflow.
  4. Optionally, to enlarge the display size of the template in the workflow editor, go to the top toolbar and do any of the following:

    • To enlarge the display, click Zoom In.
    • To reduce the display, click Zoom Out.
    • To return to the default display size, click Zoom Default.
    If your screen is minimized, you can find these options under the More menu.

  5. To manage the options you can select for an Activity:
    1. In the activity's title bar, select Edit.

      Results: The Update Activity screen opens.

    2. In Name, edit the title that describes the action users take in the review process.
    3. In Status, you track the progress of a content development Activity. By default, Inspire includes the following statuses: Writing, Reviewing, and Publishing. If you want to customize this list, follow the steps in:
    4. In Project Activity, you must associate the task with a category that defines the work.
      • By default, Inspire includes the following categories for Project Activity: Approve Content, Edit Content, Publish Content, Review Content, Review Image, and Write Content.

      • Project Activity is a required field and cannot be left blank. Although this field is not marked with a red asterisk, and you can create a new Activity without selecting a Project Activity, if you leave it blank, the Save and Submit options are not available until you correct the errors in the workflow template.

        • If there is an error in the configuration of the Activity, you see the Activity name in red.

          You must correct any errors before you can Save or Submit the workflow template.

      • If you want to customize this list, follow the steps in: Manage project activity configurations.
    5. Optionally, if you want this to be the first activity and no activities will come before it in the workflow, select Initial.
    6. Optionally, if you want this to be the final activity and no activities will follow in the workflow, select Final.
    7. Optionally, you can set a Duration for this activity in minutes.

      Important notes:

      • In the templates Inspire provides, by default, the user is given a Duration of 0 minutes to complete the activity, so you will need to set your own duration.
      • You set the time in minutes from 0 to 525600, which is 1 year.
      • After the Duration passes, if the activity is not complete, it is marked as Overdue and notifications may be sent depending on a user's notification preferences.
    8. If you want Inspire to populate or clear an XML element or attribute value across components participating in the workflow, select the Update Metadata on Completion option.

      i. Click Update.

      ii. On the Update Metadata screen, click Add.

      iii. In the XPath and Value fields, enter the expression you need to update your metadata.

      For example, if you are using the XML element "otherprops" and you want it to be set to the date when this Activity is completed, you would use the following values:

      • XPath = /*/@props
      • Value = {$Date}

      iv. On the Update Metadata screen, in the row where you added an XPath expression, click Update.

      v. On the Update Metadata screen, click Update.

    9. On the Update Activity screen, do not use the Claimable option for Review type workflows. It's not possible to change the State from Ready To Claim to In Progress, because there is no corresponding assignment, and the review is created for a specific user.

    10. If you want Inspire to create an assignment for each user in the Workgroup instead of a single assignment for the selected user, select the Create multiple assignments option.

      Important notes:

      • All users MUST complete the assignment (or all assignments must be canceled) before the Activity can be marked complete, and the workflow can be advanced.
      • This option is not available if you selected Claimable.
    11. To refine the options on the Next Workflow Task screen based on how the previous assignment was completed, select Create Multiple Transitions.

      Results: When you add a transition From this Activity, the Create Transition screen includes an option to select a Transition Type. You can create one transition for each type listed. Currently, this is limited to Accept and Reject.

      • This functionality lets you create different paths for the workflow to follow.
      • For example, you can configure a review activity that lets the user select Accept or Reject when completing the activity. If they select Accept, the workflow can advance to an approval or translation task. If they select Reject, the workflow can return to the develop content task.
      • For help creating multiple transitions, follow the steps in: Using multiple transitions with one activity.
    12. Optionally, if the Activity is related to publishing, in Publish Configuration, select the option that contains the publishing settings you want to use.

      A publishing configuration is created by an administrator and may include settings such as a default Publish Name, whether to skip or validate XML in the components, and profiling filters.

    13. Optionally, you can add guidelines for the next user when this activity is marked as Completed. In Instructions, explain to the next user what to do in 2000 or fewer characters.

      Notes:

      • Instructions are saved with the workflow template and added to the project assignment as they are created for an active workflow.
      • When an active workflow advances, Inspire displays these instructions in a read-only area at the bottom of the Next Workflow Task screen.
    14. In Workgroups, you must have a list of users who can complete the work for a project Activity. For example, if the activity is a legal review, you would create a workgroup that includes your company lawyers. To add or remove users in the Workgroups or create new groups, follow the steps in:
    15. On the Update Activity screen, select Update.
  6. To manage the options you can select in a Transition:
    1. In the transition's title bar, select Edit.

      Results: The Update Transition screen opens.

    2. In Name, enter a unique title that starts with a verb (action word) and describes the next activity the participants need to complete.
    3. By default, the Activity where you selected Create Transition is listed in From Activity.
      • Optionally, if you need to start from a different activity, you can select another one from the list of existing activities.
    4. In To Activity, from the list of existing activities, select what users need to complete after the From Activity.
    5. In Action, you can identify a process that is completed outside Inspire, such as Hire a copy editor. You can also use an Action to specify what a user should do after Inspire completes the transition, such as ​"Take a snapshot​".
      Currently, only one Action is performed by Inspire. When a user advances a project workflow task, and the Transition has an Action of InspireCreateReview, Inspire opens the Create Review screen for the current user. To use this action, follow the steps in: Add a Create Review Action to a topic workflow template.
      You can manage actions in the following ways:
    6. If the From Activity has the Create Multiple Transitions option selected, you must select a Transition Type. Select how you want to use this transition to move the workflow in a new direction, such as on an Accept path or Reject path.
    7. On the Update Transition screen, select Update.
  7. To revert a change, in the toolbar, click Undo.
  8. To reapply a change in the toolbar, click Redo.
  9. To save your changes, do one of the following:
    • To keep the workflow editor open and save your work locally, click Save Progress.
    • To close the workflow editor and save your work to the database, click Save and Submit.

    Results:

    • The changes to an Activity will be applied to all new workflows that are started using this template.
    • For workflows that use this template and are in progress:
      • If the Activity you are updating has not occurred yet, the changes will be applied when the workflow moves to the updated Activity.
      • If the Activity you are updating has already been completed, the changes will not be applied.